Out of the Shadows: The African American Male Image in Prints

DRAFT
Out of the Shadows:
African American Male Imagery in Fine Art and Popular Prints
Winston Kennedy, 2015.
Introduction
This study focuses on a small number of artists and printmakers who
created a new and revised visual image of the African American male.
The images were created at a time when most images made by racist
white Americans and Europeans showed blacks as subordinate to the
dominant culture. The artists discussed in this study attempted to
challenge the predominantly negative representations circulating in
American culture by offering alternative and positive images of their
subjects. Prints depicting positive masculine images of African American
men are difficult to find in various historical repositories. The images in
this essay represent literally and figuratively a process of pulling the
images of African American male subjects from the negative shadows of
the American imagination. These graphic works represent the efforts of
various artists including African American, European, and EuroAmericans to recreate positive and representative images of black males.
This essay is an attempt to critique and demonstrate that a small
number of artists and artisans created images that went beyond the
stereotypical and derogatory construction of African American male
images so prevalent during the last three centuries of American visual
history.
Over the last thirty years, I have found fascinating and disturbing images
of black life in private and public collections, and I’ve come to realize that
the study of visual culture provides additional perspectives for viewing
history. For instance, in an examination of two published accounts of the
Boston Massacre, I observed different visual interpretations of the death
of Crispus Attucks.
1
Figure 1. The Boston Massacre, March 7, 1770, wood engraving by Paul Revere.
For example, one of the earliest images of a black ‘hero’ is ambiguously
depicted in (Figure 1) wood engraving. The image is of an artist’s
depiction of the Boston Massacre and the death of Crispus Attucks.
Where is Crispus Attucks in this woodcut? The major and heroic central
character, the leader of the group of rebels of the Boston Massacre of
March 5, 1770 is neither visibly evident nor centrally positioned in this
wood engraving. Executed by Paul Revere and published in the Boston
Gazette on March 12, shortly after the event, this engraving celebrated a
cardinal incident in the movement toward the moment of the American
Revolution from England. It was the moment when the British soldiers in
Boston fired upon the protestors led by Crispus Attucks, an African
American. Why is Attucks not centrally pictured here as a defiant hero?
It was well documented that Attucks lead the protest. What could have
cause the diminution of Attucks bravery from this composition? We can
only imagine that Revere’s re-creation of the event is a racialized
response. From our contemporary platform of knowledge, we would infer
that Attucks’ presence was re-imagined because Revere did not wish to
have an African American man visually associated with this significant
moment of American history. The artist, Revere, exercised the license to
reconstruct history. Revere’s visual editing impacts our visual memory of
this massacre.
2
Another depiction of this event (Figure 2) is a version used in a number
of publications. This version of the Boston Massacre places Crispus
Attucks heroically front-and-center. It was published by Pufford several
months after Paul Revere's print.
Figure 2. The Boston Massacre, 1770, John Pufford
In this version of the same incident Attucks heroic image is centrally
located by the artist. He is pictured as a proactive participant. Attucks
seizes the front of the British soldier’s musket at the same moment that
it is fired into his head. In this moment of death the club that was earlier
brandished remain in the grasp of his right hand. The image that Revere
cut into the woodblock should have had more of this quality. One
possible explanation for the absence of the Attucks heroic image from the
earlier Paul Revere woodcut is given by John Parry.
During the seventeenth century, for example, pictures of
Black slaves or servants in America were virtually non-existent,
save for a very minor figure or two in the lower corner of a
decorative European map of the New World. Among colonial
images the single appearance of a Black king as one of the
three Magi in a unique religious painting was completely offset by
dozens of pictures and even historical portraits of Indian kings and
orators; the only Blacks in colonial portraiture were household
servants, endlessly waiting at the feet or at the elbow of their White
masters. At the end of the eighteenth century, a few American
painters, working in London, managed to
incorporate Black figures in semi heroic compositions
or history paintings; otherwise, Negroes were usually forced to play
comic parts in American genre scenes and political cartoons well
into the 1800s. Obviously, for most artists, slavery held relatively
3
little interest compared to the foreign and more fascinating appeal
of Indian subject matter. It was not until the height of the abolition
movement in the 1850s, followed by the Civil War era and then
Reconstruction, that images of Black men began to change
drastically in content as they multiplied rapidly in number.
Burgeoning interest in the legal end of slavery and the new life of
the Negro thereafter resulted in a major reversal of role.1
The prints included in this essay provide the foundation for my argument
as to the visualization of black men as resisters and revolutionaries, men
who fought to change their visual constructions from the stereotypical
docile, happy-go-lucky, non-threatening, passive black man to men in
control of their destinies. Many of these prints explore the representation
of black people at work and in their communities. Further, they assist
the viewer to mitigate the destructiveness of the negative imaginations
and mythos projected on African American males. The printmakers in
this essay created African American images that were both representative
and idealized. However, the most important consideration, for the
purposes of this essay, is that the images are mostly individualized and
positive. This essay is in search of a African American male self-agency
relative to visual representation. This essay is a rejection of the false
visual stereotypes and an affirmation that… who we are, fundamentally,
does not come before our existence; therefore, we are free to reject the
negative taxonomies through which others attempt to define us-attempt
to imprison us.2
I will discuss the image of the African American male in thematic areas
such as resistance and rebellion, labor, and portraiture. In the body of
this material, I will discuss the works of African American printmakers
and how their prints contributed to a more positive visual record of the
African American male experience especially those works from the first
part of the twentieth century. At the beginning and the end of the essay, I
will frame this discussion with historical prints made by white British
and American artists whose prints are central to and supportive of my
argument.
4
Resistance and Rebellion
Figure 3 The Hunted Slave, 1865, Engraving C. G. Lewis
“The Hunted Slave”, 1865, Engraving, C. G. Lewis is after a 1861painting
by Richard Andsell (1815-1885).3 This image inspired by Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1842, poem “The Slave in the Dismal Swamp.”
This engraving, although from the middle part of the 19th century and
created near the end of the Civil War, is a precursor of the ideas of
Frederick Douglass as expressed in his West India speech, “Power
concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will”.4 The
print depicts a determining moment of freedom hypothesized almost a
century later by the Martinican psychologist, Frantz Fanon. He argues
that the decisive moment of manhood occurs when one is willing to shed
blood for ones freedom.5 The runaway slave demonstrates defiance and
resolve of purpose as he is depicted cornered by mastiffs in the Great
Dismal Swamps. Wielding a short ax, the male slave kills his “enslavers”
who are symbolically represented by the dogs. Already, he has been
successful in killing one or two of the dogs (enslavers) in this struggle for
his freedom. The defiant slave continues to fight. In the process of
fighting for freedom he, automatically, fights to protect his wife.
The Dismal Swamps are located on the coastal plains of Virginia near the
North Carolina border. It was a vast almost inaccessible swamp, heavily
wooded, dark, infested with snakes, insects and other wildlife. This
“dismal” area for slaveholders became area of “refuge and freedom” for
runaway slaves - many lived their remaining lives within the Dismal
Swamp. “…which may have had 2,000 residents at its peak. Theirs was a
5
harsh life, but slaves were no stranger to a difficult existence, and many
managed to preserve their freedom for varying lengths of time.”6
There were frequent occasion of run away slaves and sometimes engaged
in outright slave rebellions in the colonies during the 17th, 18th and 19th
Centuries. There is a dearth of images of these accounts. However, the
narrative historical record recounts that the first major conspiracy was
betrayed by an indentured servant in the 17th century. A group of African
American slaves and indentured servants had decided to revolt on
September 13, 1663 at Gloucester County, Virginia.7
The first major slave revolt occurred in New York City on April 7,
1712. As a result, twenty-one blacks were executed, and six others
committed suicide. The men had met about midnight, April 6, to
take revenge for their master’s abuse. Some were armed with
firearms, swords, knives, and hatchets. Paul Cuffee set fire to his
master’s house, which attracted a crowd of townspeople. The revolt
grew as the insurgents opened fire on the crowd, killing nine
whites and wounding five or six more.”8
One of the largest revolts, yet infrequently mentioned in the literature is
the early 19th century revolt by armed slaves in Louisiana.
Little is known about the revolt in St. John the Baptist Parish,
Louisiana, in 1811, although it has pride of place as the biggest
in our history.[my emphasis] Between 300 and 500 slaves, armed
with pikes, hoes, and axes but few firearms, marched on New
Orleans with flags flying and drum beating. Free Negroes generally
supported the regime and helped crush the revolt, but at least one
rebel leader from Saint-Dominique, Charles Deslondes, was a free
mulatto. The rebels organized well, dividing themselves into
companies commanded by officers, but they quickly collapsed in
combat against the well-armed militia and regular troops under
the command of Wade Hampton.9
Paul Cuffee of New Bedford, Massachusetts and later of Westport,
Connecticut was one of the free men of color who used his resources to
resist the institution of slavery. He was one of the first leaders of a back
to Africa movement in the Americas.
6
Figure 4. Captain Paul Cuffee, wood engraving by Mason and Maas, after a drawing
by John Poole, 1812.Library of Congress [and the Schomburg Center]
This type of silhouette portraiture (Figure 4) was popular in colonial and
early 19th century America. This style was especially used where the
artist has some trepidation of his ability to capture a more representative
likeness of the sitter. The subject was usually posed in front of a lamp.
The resulting light is blocked by the profile of the sitter and that black
profile is projected onto a wall with canvas or paper attached, the artist
simply traces the profile. The image may be varied in size by the distance
of the sitter from the wall. Other devices may be used to further reduce
the drawn profile when necessary. In many instances the profile was cut
out of black colored paper and mounted onto another surface.
This wood engraving, executed by Mason and Maas in 1812, after an
earlier drawing by John Poole, shows a profile of Captain Cuffee. The
captain’s profile is centered in the upper portion of the engraved frame
underneath is an image of one of the captain’s vessels. All is pictured
situated in a seaside view with land and bay water visible in the lower
half of the composition. In the illustrated frame of the composition is the
inscription “Captain Paul Cuffee 1812.” He achieved success in the
shipping industry and later became a supporter of the repatriation of
African Americans to Sierra Leone, West Africa.
Captain Cuffee was born free. After many struggles in farming he
developed into a prosperous businessman. He always understood the
negative psychological, social and economic limitations placed upon
7
African Americans--both free and enslaved. He was a friend James
Forten, a free black and successful ship outfitting merchant in the
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area. Both were supportive of the work of the
American Colonization Society. Captain Cuffee underwrote the expenses
of several trips to the African continent to assess resources and find land
to receive the future African Americans. Although Forten eventually
changed his mind about repatriation as an effective emancipatory
strategy, Captain Cuffee, nevertheless, persisted in his support of the
back to Africa movement.
On January 15, 1817, Forten and other black leaders called
a meeting at Bethel to discuss the ACS and the idea of
colonization. Almost 3,000 black men packed the church.
Three prominent black ministers, Richard Allen, Absalom
Jones and John Gloucester, spoke in favor of immigrating
to Africa. However, when Forten called for those in favor to
say "yea," not a single voice was heard. When he called for
those opposed, one tremendous "no" rang out that seemed
"as it would bring down the walls of the building." As Forten
wrote to Paul Cuffee on January 25, "there was not one
sole [sic] that was in favor of going to Africa." 10
Additionally, Captain Cuffee perceived repatriation was an excellent
strategy because “If whites, as they said, refused to liberate their slaves
only because they feared masses of inferior and dangerous freemen in
their midst, then let these freemen, present and future, of their own free
choice depart from America for a better life in their native Africa.”11
One of the considerations that permitted Cuffee to persist in his
advancement of the idea of the colonization movement is that he was
more of a master of his own resources. In that capacity he was able to
persue his vision of repatriation as an individual to greater extent than
Forten who relied on alliances with Absalom Jones and John Gloucester
and finally the vote of the African Americans at the Bethel meeting in
1817. It has been reported that Captain Cuffee persisted in his vision of
mass repatriation to Africa for the remainder of his life.
Is there anything in the record to show that Captain Paul Cuffee,
toward the end of his life, ever doubted the validity of his back-toAfrica idea? After his second voyage to Sierra Leone he had boasted
that two thousands pleas for passage to Africa had
reached him from the city of Boston.12
8
Denmark Vesey bought himself out of slavery in with money earned from
a lottery winning. He was a carpenter in Charleston, South Carolina. In
1822, he led a conspiracy to create a mass insurrection of the slaves of
the low country South Carolina. Before the revolt could take place the
plans became known to the authorities. Thirty -five slaves were executed.
There are not many published images of Black men rising in revolt-killing their enslavers. I would argue that visual images have the power
to inspire others to revolt and as a result of images depicting African
American men as leaders of rebellions are limited. This rare (Figure
5), small but visually powerful 1831 woodcut from an anti-abolitionist
tract illustrates the moment in the willingness of the slaves to fight for
freedom. They were led by Nat Turner. He was always dismayed by the
injustices and cruelty of the enslavers. He had a vision to under gird his
increasing will:
I heard a loud noise in the heavens, and the
Spirit instantly appeared to me and said the
Serpent was loosened, and Christ had laid down
The yoke he had borne for the sins of man, and
That I should take it on and fight against the
Serpent, for the time was fast approaching,
When the first should be last and the last should
Be first.”
-Nat Turner13
The revolutionaries are shown (Figure 5) in the process of fighting and
killing in their struggle for freedom. The human forms in the prints are
stiffly rendered. Note the awkward position of form #2. All of the
participants are shown on the same plane of the composition with the
exception of the rebel behind form #3. Seeing this image must have
struck a chord of dread in the hearts and imagination of
9
Figure 5. Horrid Massacre in Virginia, 1831.
the planter class. Although not admitted widely, this manner of rising-up
by slaves was a most feared aspect of the slave owner’s life. It was always
there this fear just below the day-to-day surface reality.
“Nat Turner raised only about seventy slaves but won fame by killing an
unprecedented number of whites. Since the previous plots and risings in
Virginia had failed to draw white blood, Turner accomplishment stood
out all the more.”14
Figure 6. Discovery of Nat Turner, wood engraving by Clement after W. H. Shelton.
Nat Turner is shown in (Figure 6) at the moment of his capture. The
artist has chosen to illustrate the event as a moment between to men,
the victor and the vanquished. The victor is shown almost impeccably
10
attired in the middle of the woods. He wears clean pants and coat. His
rifle, powder horn and knapsack are orderly position. His face is calm.
On the other hand, Nat Turner is shown with contorted, almost
animalistic eyes. He shows anger concerning this moment of discoverythis moment of failure. His pants are torn at the knee and he is in his
bare feet. Turner is depicted stepping out of a cave like wood and brush
pile where he has been hiding. Although, he retains his sword at his side
his gesture seems to maintain some threat as a fighter.
Henry Brown, then a young and enslaved man living in Virginia,
witnessed the aftermath of the Nat Turner Rebellion. In his Slave
Narrative, he indicates:
I did not then know precisely what was the cause of
these scenes, for I could not get any very satisfactory
information concerning the matter from my master,
only that some of the slaves had undertaken to kill their
owners; but I have since learned that it was the famous
Nat Turner's insurrection that caused all the excitement
I witnessed. Slaves were whipped, hung, and cut down
with swords in the streets, if found away from their quarters
after dark. The whole city was in the utmost confusion
and dismay; and a dark cloud of terrific blackness, seemed
to hang over the heads of the whites. So true is it, that "the
wicked flee when no man pursueth." Great numbers of
the slaves were locked in the prison, and many were
"half hung," as it was termed; that is, they were suspended
to some limb of a tree, with a rope about their necks, so
adjusted as not to quite strangle them, and then they were
pelted by the men and boys with rotten eggs. This halfhanging is a refined species of cruelty, peculiar to slavery, I
believe.15
11
Figure 7. "Effects of the Fugitive Slave Law" artist unknown.
Providing more prerogatives for southern slavers to retrieve their
“property’ than earlier fugitive laws, the Fugitive Slave law of 1850 made
the near safe harbor of the northern free states more distant. The law
permitted slave owners to go into northern and or free states to retrieve
their “property”. The law not only placed the escaping slave at risk, in
many instances the slavers would claim freeman as escaped property.
The above illustration shows the attack by “pattyrollers” and slave
hunters firing on slaves who are fleeing the bondage of the south. The
artists shows the men dressed in the fashion of the day complete with
vest, cravat and walking cane. One of the resistors has fallen, perhaps
mortally wounded.
Figure 8. The Death of Captain Ferrer, the Captain of the Amistad, July, 1839.
Library of Congress.
12
The rebellion of the primarily Mende captives aboard the Amistad
slaveship in 1839 is represented in the woodcut above (Figure 8). The
print represents the moment that the captain of the ship is killed. The
Mende are using cutlasses or as weapons. The action of the rebellion is
illustrated in a linear fashion across the page. The major action in which
the captain is being killed takes place on the left side the composition.
The other action on the deck becomes secondary. European and Africans
are distinguished by clothing and tone of skin. This moment of victory,
very important in terms of resistance and rebellion, is follow during the
subsequent year by a judicial victory by the Mende in the Supreme Court
of the United States.
The lithograph (Figure 9) is a portrait of the leader of the rebels, Cinque.
The group’s success came under his leadership. The portrait of him
shows a young man of obvious self-composure and sense of self. His
portrait, published in the New York Sun newspaper, contrast greatly with
many of the other negative caricatured African American males printed
images of the period. The prints of Cinque and his men are useful in
examining enslaved Africans’ will to resist and rebel at both the physical
and judicial level.
Figure 9. Joseph Cinquez, lithograph, 1839.
13
Henry Brown was born on a plantation in Louisa County Virginia circa
1815. At approximately 21 years of age he married a washerwoman
named Nancy and subsequently had three children. In order to assure
that his wife could care for the children he paid Nancy’s master wages for
the time that she spent away caring for her own family. Brown was able
to make the payments by producing beyond his weekly quota at the
tobacco factory where he was enslaved in Richmond, Virginia.
Unfortunately, in 1848 his wife and children were sold further south. The
following passage described the moment of parting. Although, this
description was never imagined in print, this incident caused Henry
Brown to prepare to runaway from bondage.
As Nancy [Brown] began the customary walk south,
shackled to other adult slaves and with her children
loaded in a wagon, [Henry ] Brown walked hand-in-hand
with her for a few miles. Then he watched, powerless, as
his wife and children were taken from him.
Devastated, Brown was determined to escape.16
Brown prepared for his escape. He had a wooden box built. With the
assistance of his friend, a white abolitionist, he had himself shipped from
Richmond, Virginia to an anti-slavery headquarters in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania.
Figure 10. The Resurrection of Henry "Box" Brown at Philadelphia, Lithograph,
1850
In the lithograph (Figure 10) Brown is shown arising from the box as it
is opened in Philadelphia. Although, the box was labeled “this side up”,
he nevertheless spent two-hours on his head, upside down and almost
passed out during the 24-hour journey. The lithograph is arranged to
visually narrate the event, Brown is shown inside the shipping box. The
14
top of the box is held by one of the abolitionist to show the shipping
address. Both men to the left of the box are holding implements for
opening the box. In the box Brown is depicted as well-dressed. Even after
his difficult trip his bowtie and clothes are in good order. The artist did
not want to depict Henry “Box” Brown clothing disheveled, the
abolitionist saw Brown’s unique escape as an opportunity to use in the
abolitionist cause.
The lithograph portrait (Figure 11) is the frontispiece used in Brown’s
later publication entitled The Narrative of Henry Box Brown.
Figure 11. Frontispiece portrait of Henry "Box" Brown from the Narrative of Henry
Box Brown, 1849.
Brown became an abolitionist speaker. Many of his presentation were
made with the use of a panorama that visualized the difficult life of
slavery in the South. Panoramas were large rolls of canvases containing
many scenes, in this instance of slavery in the South. The canvases
would be wound slowly from one side of the stage to the next as the
narrator lectured about the various themes and scenes shown on the
moving canvas. There were solicitations for the contributions of funds to
assist Brown in buying his wife and children out of slavery in North
Carolina. Unfortunately, he was never re-united with his family. When
the Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act, Brown left America to
England. He was never heard of again after 1864. In his desire for
freedom and eventual escape to the North, Brown and many others like
him had an impact on both those who made the decision to stay or did
15
not have the opportunity to runaway. That impact was found in the art
of resistance.
Those who fled to freedom made an inestimable contribution to the
people they left behind, which must be weighed against
their participation in a safety valve effect. These were the slaves
who sort of taking the path of insurrection, most clearly repudiated
the regime; who dramatically chose freedom at the highest risk;
who never let the others forget that there was an alternative to
their condition”17
Figure 12. The Freeman's Defense. (gun battle among rocks between whites and
Negroes. Engraving by W. Baker, 1852.
Artists found it important to show in their depictions of slavery runaways
that they resisted through the use of firearms. They armed themselves as
they fought to gain their freedom and used their weapons in their
defense. The use of firearms by enslaved men is rarely depicted.
Frederick Douglass was born a slave in Maryland. A depiction of the
young Douglass escaping from slavery was used as a cover for sheet
music. The illustration (Figure 13) “The Fugitive Song” shows him after
he has crossed a river. Douglass’s gesture is one of defiance. On the
other side of the river, the artist included two men on horseback riding
along side dogs. We are to assume that they are in search of Douglass,
the slavers riding horses and running tracking dogs. The dogs are
16
searching the far bank of the river for his scent. Douglass is barefoot and
carrying a knapsack.
Figure 13. The Fugitive's Song, Lithograph by E. W. 1845.
Douglass is shown well dressed with the exception of shoes. The print
conveys the sense that he is bound for freedom, his index finger is
pointed in a northward direction.
Those slaves who stayed resisted in many ways. They had to
accommodate themselves to the realities of their day-to-day conditions.
They, in some instances, slowed their work efforts. Sometimes they
feigned an ignorance of instruction given. They intentionally broke plows,
17
hoes and wagons and other implements of production. In many
instances, the price they paid was severe punishment, but they resisted.
The African American Male Image in Labor
Figure 14. The New England Anti-Slavery Almanac, 1841.
Library of Congress.
A mythology developed among the slavers in America. They constructed a
picture of the African Americans as incapable of laboring to provide for
themselves. Therefore, the slavers saw themselves as thinking for and
ordering the lives of African American men in order that they might
provide for themselves and their families. The plight of slaves under this
perception was significantly difficult. There were numerous rules and
laws in place that made it difficult for a slave or a free man of color to
reap the fruit of their labor. In many instances the lives of the free men of
color were almost as restricted as their brothers in slavery.
The slave owners partially blinded their own eyes to the fact that these
men were the labor that provided the profits that made their own
fortunes. These African American men pictured above are doing the
intense labor of maintaining and driving the southern economy through
free labor. Most of the images of black men were dehumanizing and
emasculating. This negative perception was cultivated among the owners
and other beneficiaries of the system to partially justify the institution of
slavery
18
Figure 15. The Escaped Slave.
Formerly enslaved on a plantation the runaway slave who has reached
Union lines. How will he be integrated in to American labor.
The wood engraving(Figure 16) illustrates the Freedman Bureau officer
standing in between the white and black group. The Freedman officer
serves as an officiating force the struggles between the working class
whites of the South and the African American men. The African
Americans laborers are ready to fight, ready to defend themselves.
Figure 16. The Freedman's Bureau
19
Figure 17. Street Car Scene by John Wilson
In the “Street Car Scene”,18 (Figure 17) a 1945Lithograph, by John
Wilson, the black worker rides the streetcar alone in a crowd –
psychologically alone- in his work for identity and parity within American
society. In the shadows of the white American imagination he is a threat
constructed out of white American guilt-simultaneous admiration and
fear. Immediately, we sense the racial fear of him. We see his
vulnerability in this environment of white women and a child. We are
able to project onto Wilson’s streetcar composition one of Fanon’s most
famous moments in Black Skin, White Mask. Fanon arrives in Paris and
the young European child says, “Mamma see the Negro! I’m frightened.” 19
As a result of the least false utterance, the life of the black worker will be
at risk. Perhaps, the women will accuse him of a “wandering eye” or,
their accusation will be the result of an, in passing and unintended
brush against the body any of the women in the close quarters of the
streetcar. As a worker, he is making a contribution to the war effort in
the Boston Navy Yard. He is working for the preservation of freedom and
democracy in the world. This “freedom worker” remains, nevertheless, a
negative liability, a black male threat, within the environment of the
streetcar and the greater environment of American racial consciousness.
Again, to paraphrase Fanon, every where around the black worker is
whiteness.20He holds himself tightly together- almost attempting to
prevent himself from expanding beyond his immediate seated space. His
hands secure his lunch box on his lap. That grasp becomes a way to
physically control any automatic/natural movement of his body. His
grasp on his lunchbox prevents his hands and body from accidentally
coming in contact with the “whiteness” within the streetcar. He is
permitted to crossover and to contribute during the war, however, at
wars’ end, he will be the first to be fired in the industrial downturn.
20
The social isolation of the black worker is almost palpable. We
immediately feel the psychological loneliness of his fight for identity and
parity within American society. Unfortunately, the negatively shadowed
perceptions of him are not mediated by his wartime contribution to the
struggle for American freedom and democracy.
Figure 18. Negro Worker, Lithograph by James Wells, 1940.
Some of Douglass’ concerns for the natural and positive countenance of
African American male portraiture is demonstrated in the works of “the
dean of African American printmakers,” James L. Wells. In Wells’ 1940,
lithograph entitled “Negro Worker”21 he illustrates the face of an
industrial worker. Although, Wells’ worker is very similar to Wilson’s
shipyard worker in the “Street Car Scene,” the worker appears,
nevertheless, much more self assured than Wilson’s. Wells places his
industrial worker in the foreground of the composition with an industrial
plant in the background. Wells’ Negro Worker is robust and self-assured
and expresses neither the psychological isolation nor physical insecurity
seen in Wilson’s shipyard worker. Wells constructs in his portrait subject
a more positive relationship of the worker to industrial labor and general
manufacturing associated with the urban North.
Several years earlier, Wells created a wonderful modernist visual
statement concerning the role of the African American worker and his
role in the development of the cities. In his relief print entitled “Looking
Upward.”22 Wells formally integrates a semi-abstract African American
21
male figure into a composition of various stylized city buildings. The
black male figure appears to be a waiter who is holding a serving tray on
which he is serving small models of the larger buildings of the city.
Although, the small building models served on the tray are normal in
their construction, the larger “real” buildings, nevertheless, are swaying
and undulating – reflecting the implied movement of the waiter. This
print is a wonderful statement by Wells concerning the contribution of
the African American worker to the rhythm and cultural life of the cityhow the city is impacted by the African American workers.
Figure 19. Looking Upward, Linocut by James Wells, 1930.
Many of the fine arts works produce by Wells was often commercialized.
Here Wells used an earlier linocut entitled “Looking Upward”
commission as art of a commercial art
Figure 20. Book Jacket for Negro Wage Earner, 1930 by
Lorenzo J. Greene and Carter G. Woodson’s publication
22
Below Wells depicts in another linocut the African American worker in
industry. This print executed in 1929 shows the workers active and
integrated into the industry in the North. The struggles of the workers
moving from the South and to the Northern states were significant to the
increasing labor required in the North. Unfortunately, this print made in
1929 does not foretell the almost immediate crash of the stock markets
and the difficult labor years to come during the depression.
Figure 21. Builders, Linocut by James L. Wells, 1929.
This industrial work scene (Figure 21) with workers producing and
assembling products. In the background the smokestacks belching forth
with black smoke this urban scene contrasts with the rural labor scene
below.
Figure 22. The Plowman by Wilmer Jennings, wood engraving, 1948.
23
Wilmer Jennings’ “Plowman”23 is a glimpse of the African American
sharecropper on the farm (figure 22). In this 1948 relief print the black
farmer is alone in this expansive field close to nature, but doing the
backbreaking labor of plowing from sunup until sundown. Jennings’
composition presents the man, plow and mule as a unified machine
preparing the furrows of the field for the planting season. The lines
converging to the horizon lends the composition a very dramatic quality.
We perceive a sense of oneness of the plowman in his labor within this
idyllic agricultural environment. However, the beauty of the environment
hides the horrors of frequent lynching and the cheating of the
sharecroppers on the sale of their crops-causing a virtual extension of
slavery. It is from this oppressive environment in the Southern United
States that many of the African American males migrated from to the
Northern United States.
Figure 23. Surface Mining, Dox Thrash, n.d.
African American mine workers are shown in Dox Thrash’s print titled
“Surface Mining,”24 (n.d.). He illustrates two men toiling and pulling at a
surface load. Thrash shows the entire body in work positions actively
working. However, he shows no facial characteristics, these two
ambiguously identified workers are presented similarly to the everyman
plowman of the previous Wilmer Jennings print. Although Dox Thrash
was very interested in the integrity of individual African American
images. He, nevertheless, represents the black workers, in this print,
with very generalised human forms.
24
Figure 24. Played-Out by Dox Thrash, n.d.
Dox Thrash attacked the debilitating and hard labor work of the African
American male. In many circumstances working two jobs. He was
concerned by the severity and fatigue caused by the physically intense
labor. In most instances African American males were given the most
physically difficult and dangerous jobs in American industry. The
etching/aquatint “Played-Out”,25 (n.d.), is an illustration of the effects of
the backbreaking labor of dead-end day jobs filled by African American
males. Working multiples jobs to make ends meet. At the end at the day,
night or week the laborer was literally worked to a “living death.”
Many African American male workers attempting to work in new
industries in the North and South – and many of those workers in need
of jobs traditionally not available to African American workers faced
another life threatening challenge. This challenge, lynching, was more
despicable than being the first to be laid off in the industrial downturn.
Many became, during the late 19th and early 20th century, lynch mob
victims.
These African American males in their attempts to provide for their wives
and children were exposed to intense white resentment and hate. Many
were lynched due to their participation in labor protests, and buying
boycotts. They actively fought and organized to remove themselves from
the feudal slavery that sharecropping came to be-a reconstruction of the
plantation system. Many died in horrible fashions for exercising their
normal civil rights as American citizens. Elizabeth Catlett, an artist who
participated in many boycotts, organized activities relative to the rights of
25
workers and agitated for equal pay for equal work, has poignantly
presented a print of the lynch mob victim.
Figure 25. “…and a very special care for our loved ones by Elizabeth Catlett,”
1946.
Entitled “…and a very special care for our loved ones.”26 Catlett shows
the African American male worker (Figure 25), after he was cut down
from the hanging tree, sprawled on the ground with the lynch rope still
tied around his neck. We see the trousers legs and shoes of the lynch
mob in the upper background. Catlett does not show the mob members’
faces. The absence of the lynch mob faces provides anonymity. The lynch
mob perceives this anonymity to be a significant part of their power. The
anonymous mob’s ultimate objective is to strike fear into minds of all
African American male in order to limit black male thinking to the
fearsome and limited shadows of their existence-to be forever in
“psychological servitude.” The mob attempts through this to leave a
universal lesson of fear in the black male psychic -if you agitate for fair
pay, equal rights and justice this horrific form of death will be visited
upon you.
Frantz Fanon talked about the problems of freedom received as a gift
without the shedding of blood by the colonized and the enslaved. 27 The
shipyard worker perceives his freedom as being given or allowed as
opposed to being earned through the shedding of blood. He is, therefore,
unable to exercise in the psychological and physical sense all of his
being-the whole self. He still perceives a self -lack.
26
Comparatively, “The Hunted Slave”28 has made the decision to shed
blood in the struggle for freedom, to protect his wife and, therefore, to
shed blood to sacrifice his life if necessary in the killing of the dogs-a
visual metaphor for the slave masters and slave hunters. This is the
moment of earned freedom-this is the moment described by Fanon.
27
Red Eye's Hall, Lithograph 1935, by Meyer Wolf (1897-1985)
Reading and interpreting prints of black male subjects requires a rereading of the cultural history. In this study, I examine how racial
identity and masculinity was posited and evoked in the imagery. I would
argue that the artists included in this discussion attempted to create a
counter-image that conveyed their sense of history, which celebrated,
idealized and visually documented their view of the recorded events. It is
intended that this essay motivate other artists to do as Fanon has
advised, to reject negative visual taxonomies in order that African
Americans might choose to control the visual representation of self. The
printmakers also interpreted the ideals of the abolitionists and race
leaders. They created transformed images that projected African
28
American men in various social constructions. This was a radical notion
at the time, when you consider the long violent history of African
Americans. These images of African American males in prints represent
black men who go to war, contribute to the labor force, achieve through
education. Most importantly they represent the willingness to resist and
rebel in the interest of the race. These prints compels us to begin the
transformation of the negative racial myths-to transcends the “Darktown
Series” of the 19th Century. These images did much more than record
the presence of black men in America, they became a projection of
empowerment as African Americans sought to shape and control their
image. While history books have tended to overlook and ignore most of
this imagery, I found abundant evidence of it in the collections here at
the Schomburg Center and at the Library of Congress. Scholars and
artists alike are reinterpreting, historicizing, and creating works and
alternative readings in visual culture and critical race theory. My aim is
to demonstrate and decode the prints sometimes ‘hidden’ references to
the political, ideological and aesthetic interests of the artist and subject,
and reveal the parallels between visual representations of and written
discourse on the black subject. Exploring representations through text
and image provides us with a new paradigm in which to explore the
racial subtext and the significance of the image in the study of history.
These works pull the more humane and heroic images of African
American males Out of the Shadows.
1
Ellwood Parry, The Image of the Indian and the Black Man in American Art:
1590-1900, New York: George Braziller, 1974: p. xiii.
2
Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks. Trans. Charles Lam Markmann, New
York: Grove Press, 1967(Peau noire, masques blancs. Paris: Editions de Seuil,
1952.)
3
“The Hunted Slave,” a 1865 reproductive engraving by C.G. Lewis from an
1861 painting by Richard Ansdell. The Moorland-Spingarn Research Center,
Howard University, Washington, DC.
4
Frederick Douglas’ West India Speech given during his appointment as ConsulGovernor to Haiti, 1889-91.
5
Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, Trans. Constance Farrington. New
York: Grove Press, 1963. (Les Damnes de la terre. Paris: Francois Maspero,
1961). p. 61.
6
Colin A. Palmer, Passageways: An Interpretive History of Black America,
Volume I: 1619-1863, Orlando, FL: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1998, p. 238.
7
Smith, Jessie Carney, Black First, Detroit: Visible Ink Press, 1994, p. 74.
29
8
Ibid, p.75
Genovese, Eugene D., Roll Jordan Roll:The World that Slaves Made, New
York: Pantheon Books, 1974, p. 592.
10
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/36484.html
11
Kaplan, Sidney and Emma Kaplan, The Black Prescence in the Era of the
American Revolution. Amherst: University of Massachussetts Press, 1989, Rev.
Ed., p.165
12
ibid, p. 161.
13
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3narr5html
14
Genovese, Eugene, 1974, p. 592-3.
15
Brown, Henry box with Charles Stearns, The Narrative of Henry Box Brown,
Boston: Brown and Stearns, 1849, p. 38
16
ibid, p. 55.
17
Gnovese, Eugene, 1974, p.657.
18
Reba and Dave Williams, “Theme Images” Alone in a Crowd: Prints from the
1930s-40s by African-American Artists. From the collection of Reba and Dave
Williams.
19
Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks. Trans. Charles Lam Markmann, New
York: Grove Press, 1967(Peau noire, masques blancs. Paris: Editions de Seuil,
1952.) p. 112.
20
Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks.
21
James Lesene Wells, “Negro Worker”, 1940, lithograph. The Permanent
Collection of the Howard University Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
22
James Lesene Wells, “Looking Upward”, n.d., relief print, The Permanent
Collection of the Howard University Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
23
Wilmer Jennings, “Plowman”, 1948, wood engraving, The Permanent
Collection of the Howard University Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
24
Dox Thrash, “Surface Mining”, n.d., etching, The Permanent Collection of the
Howard University Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
25
Dox Thrash, “Played-Out”, etching/aquatint, The Permanent Collection of the
Howard University Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
26
Elizabeth Catlett, “…and a very special care for our loved ones”, 1946, From
the relief print series on Black Women created with the supported of a
Rosenwald grant. The Permanent Collection of the Howard University Gallery of
Art, Washington, DC.
27
Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth , p.___.
28
ibid
9
30